some time ago I wrote about a project I had been about to start working on. I went "underground" for a while or two, or seventy, but now I come up with something that I believe is mature enough to be called a beta. There is only one feature that remains to be developed, which will rely on features that are already out there.

I won't comment on its GUI anymore. I spent way too much time thinking and rethinking over this.

What I would like you to do would just be to give this little program a try. Your thoughts, bug reports (unless I've caught the biggest ones), whatever. For someone else to run it and write something about it. I am still working on some kind of ReadMe. Below I enclose the part of it that will be useful to you.

You can have all program windows opened at once. For those of you who did not pay a lot of attention to drive policies: open Drive Letter Selective Policies window and NoDriveTypeAutoRun window (don't change anything in them, just open them). Then, open Settings window, click the checkbox at its bottom and look how the values in the other two windows are changing.

NoDriveTypeAutoRun handler window allows to restore system's default value of NoDriveTypeAutoRun. I would be really thankful for information whether the program properly recognizes your operating system ("Select default" button).

The program allows to generate .REG files with the settings you change in the program. All of the settings are remembered during program's workflow - you can close its windows, open them again and your settings will be there. The program is designed to make it impossible to close its main window when different windows are opened - the user needs to close all windows of the program in order to terminate it.

When you get lost in the wild of windows, it's enough to find main window of the program and click the button to bring the window you're trying to reach to top.I will also be glad for your grammar reports, English is not my native language and yet I have to learn a lot.

Drive Policies Management Toolkit is an advanced Windows drive policies query and management utility. It enables the end-user to hide, prevent access to or selectively disable Autorun for particular drive letters. Furthermore, it supports drive type Autorun disable policy. You can also set the USB Write Protect policy: turn it on, turn it off or un-define. It is possible to generate a .reg file with settings you specify in the program.

@wraith808 and Stoic Joker:Your suggestions are valid, but I think I get the programmer why he chose this layout. We are in agreement that this interface is not as nice and tidy as it can be, but I find it also a pain in the donkey to continuously select an item from a list, configure it and continue with the next item on the list. Especially when I want to do that for all possible drive options. And keep an overview of what I have set.

The overview, offered by the chosen interface, more than makes up for the not-so-tidyness in my (sometimes) humble opinion.

@pax:Replacing the buttons with combo-boxes (in the drive policies screen) would be an improvement, though. One conform way of placing (radio) buttons and check boxes (top-down or left-right, but not mixed) also helps in getting a look for your application.

"White-space" in an application does not need to be bad. If a certain look for an application is chosen, and thus keeping application windows (roughly) the same size, I really don't mind seeing some "white-space". This will make the application look more tranquil and also more like an application that is or would be used by professionals.

Also shorten the descriptions in the applications to the bare minimum that you can come up with and add an small info icon that shows the full text when you hover your cursor over it. Too much text in a application windows can make it look a bit chaotic.

In general, make sure that sentences should be as short as they can be and never group sentences in such a way that it takes up more than 3 lines. If you do have more text than that, separate them with a blank line. This make skimming a lot easier.

Please take my comment as it is intended (constructive criticism) because I do think that your application would get a lot of interest, even if you throw all suggestions made in this thread into the wind.

@wraith808 and Stoic Joker:Your suggestions are valid, but I think I get the programmer why he chose this layout. We are in agreement that this interface is not as nice and tidy as it can be, but I find it also a pain in the donkey to continuously select an item from a list, configure it and continue with the next item on the list. Especially when I want to do that for all possible drive options. And keep an overview of what I have set.

Both control options suggested offer multi select which would allow the same work to be done with less clicks. Wraith's is more compact, and mine allows for the birds eye overview of which you speak. Either would be less intimidating for the user than opening with what appears to be a zillion options.

@wraith808 and Stoic Joker:Your suggestions are valid, but I think I get the programmer why he chose this layout. We are in agreement that this interface is not as nice and tidy as it can be, but I find it also a pain in the donkey to continuously select an item from a list, configure it and continue with the next item on the list. Especially when I want to do that for all possible drive options. And keep an overview of what I have set.

Both control options suggested offer multi select which would allow the same work to be done with less clicks. Wraith's is more compact, and mine allows for the birds eye overview of which you speak. Either would be less intimidating for the user than opening with what appears to be a zillion options.

I understand the things you point out, and you need not worry about me taking your opinions seriously. I am a CMD addict and do not have a lot in common with nice GUI things and the like. My primary goal is for something to function well first, and then look somehow. I am 18 years old and this is one of my very first GUI programs and I value your opinion and advice, even when they are not very kind.

As to the appearance of Drive Letter policies dialog - I have another arrangement I am about to present you soon. The arrangement that had been born in my mind at the very beginning, and which I rejected very early for some reason. Now it seems the best to me. I feel I need to change it, because I got lost in these drives myself; there's to big text density.

@Shades: Thank you for a very constructive reply.

I look forward to you reporting your feelings about this little project.